This blog began as a description of our life in Al Ain, UAE (United Arab Emirates). Brn worked at the UAE University Libraries Deanship for three years and Bss homeschooled our four children, D, B, P, and O. After returning to the the USA for five years, we are living in Abu Dhabi now.

2005/07/09

Coins

These are the main coins that get used in the UAE:

1 Dirham (new)

1 Dirham (old)

The only difference that I can tell is that the new dirham coin is smaller.

50 fils (.5 dirham)

25 fils (.25 dirham)

In all my time here (a whole month now) I have been given exactly one coin smaller than a 25 fils, a 10 fils one. This is despite the fact that the stores routinely sell things with prices like 12.95 AED. So the cashiers round the price off, sometimes giving you more than your change, sometimes less. Admittedly, 10 fils and less aren't worth a lot (10 fils is about 2.7 cents). But it seems like this would really throw off their till counts at the end of the day. John Chilton wrote about this and an effort to get rid of the smaller coins back in April, if you want to read more.